Naivety can be refreshing, and in the short term, effective, but there comes a point at which in a footballing context it becomes embarrassingly exploitable. Birmingham City, a team that had not scored at home in their three previous matches, were given more space in midfield by Blackpool than they knew what to do with, and only their lack of pace up front saved Blackpool from a hiding.

And yet, as Blackpool's 3,000 travelling supporters will doubtless point out, the Tangerines spurned several good chances, which goes part of the way towards explaining why going into this match, no team in the Premier League had secured more points away from home than Blackpool's nine, and at the same time no team had conceded more goals on their travels.

There was more incident in the opening quarter than Birmingham fans have been used to seeing in some entire games this season, but it was hard to understand why Blackpool were not reduced to 10 men after five minutes. Alexander Hleb's pass sent Keith Fahey clear, and Neal Eardley's trip – accidental or not – appeared to deny a clear goal-scoring opportunity.

The referee, Anthony Taylor, disagreed, reaching only for the yellow card, and Sebastian Larsson's free-kick was touched over by the Blackpool goalkeeper, Matt Gilks.

Even so, Birmingham should have taken the lead soon afterwards, when Hleb, revelling in the space afforded him by the Blackpool midfield trio, put Garry O'Connor through on goal. The heavily built Scot is not the fastest of movers and that, and his need for an extra touch, gave Craig Cathcart enough time to get back and make a clearing tackle.

Shortly after the half-hour the long-threatened opener arrived. Under pressure from Ridgewell, David Vaughan headed Larsson's corner back across goal, the giant Nikola Zigic nodded the ball against the bar, and with Gilks stranded, Ridgewell stooped to head the rebound into the empty goal from no more than a couple of yards.

The second goal, while resulting from another Larsson corner, was even more bizarre. This time it was Roger Johnson who got to the ball first, but his header was going well wide when Ridgewell, having made his run and been by-passed by Larsson's delivery, stuck out a leg and deflected the ball back from near the byline into the six-yard box.

Even then, Charlie Adam should have cleared it, but the midfielder unaccountably decided to take a touch and mis-controlled the ball into the path of Zigic, who bundled it in.

The Blackpool manager, Ian Holloway, blamed himself. "It was a fair result. Their manager beat me with his tactics – they played in a way I wasn't aware they were going to play." Others will no doubt watch and learn.

THE FANS' PLAYER RATINGS AND VERDICT

JON BERRY BluesinLondon@yahoogroups This was a decent performance. We were very organised and Hleb had his best game so far. There was a pleasing improvement from Zigic and you got a sense he could be a good player in the making. The work rate that was the bedrock of last season's fantastic run is back and scoring two goals was a treat – it was the first time in 51 games that we had won by more than one goal. Ridgewell scored the first goal and deserves great credit for Zigic's effort. He chased a lost cause to the byline. Blackpool are prepared to come at you, which makes for a better game, and their fans are having the time of their lives.

JACK GAUGHAN Blackpool.VitalFootball.co.uk For the first time this season we looked out of our depth. We gave them far too much room in midfield and Hleb and Ferguson had a field day. We had three up front and the way Taylor-Fletcher plays it meant in effect we had four strikers. There was no tracking back and we didn't defend as a unit. When you play like this in the Premier League you are going to get battered. It was so naive, it was embarrassing. We didn't look threatening until Phillips came on. Cathcart was fantastic in defence, but Adam had a nightmare – he controlled the ball into Zigic's path for Birmingham's second goal.